And after all that, are you expecting “The Best Gifts” to be a militant pro-nursing book?

Well, it’s not.

It certainly condones breastfeeding and mother’s milk, but it’s really about the intangibles behind the things that loved ones give to one another. A scrapbook covered with a piece from a beloved baby blanket, a bedtime story book with a well-loved patina, a bit of something (like sandalwood) that evokes the scent of home — what makes them valuable is the association more than the things themselves.

Hopping back on the soapbox for a moment, let me note that breastfeeding is one of the few gifts that combines the tangible and intangible. It’s not always easy, but the benefits to a baby (and mother) are far-reaching.

While “The Best Gifts” won’t win a Newbery or Caldecott award, it is a lovely little book, perfectly suitable for a family with a newborn.

Brian Floca’s muted illustrations are gorgeous and detailed; train buffs will enjoy studying the nuanced drawings. The narrative has the free-style poetry version of an engine’s rhythm, celebrating the railroad’s domination of a place where “the country opens, opens wide, empty as an ocean.”

We’ll pause here to note that Floca avoids any remarks on the social and ethical aspects of the changes wrought by the railroad. He keeps the tone as merrily self-congratulatory as a World War II newsreel.Read more…

Jacqueline Woodson's spare, evocative picture book teaches how the smallest considerate acts can make the world a better place.

Many children are a little more self-conscious than they are outgoing, especially when they’re worried about a gesture that might cause their friends to mock them.

That’s why Chloe, an elementary school age girl, is hesitant when her teacher introduces a new student named Maya in Jacqueline Woodson’s “Each Kindness” (Nancy Paulsen Books, $16.99).

Maya is wearing the wrong things: “spring shoes, not meant for the snow,” and one has a broken strap. Chloe and her BFFs don’t return Maya’s tentative smiles, and leave her alone at recess and lunch. Plucky Chloe tries unsuccessfully to reach out to the stolid girls. Then one day, her classroom seat is empty.

The latest picture book from artist Henry Cole is extraordinary in its silence, which conveys both the urgency of the secrecy surrounding the Underground Railroad that helped escaped slaves find freedom, and the burden of tension shared by runaways and their surreptitious hosts.

It begins with a quilt draped over a fence, then an image of a farm girl watching Confederate soldiers ride down the road. She goes on with her chores. Something in the stacked corn startles her. Do the adults know about the people hiding in the barn?

Cover of the book, “My Big Sister”/”Mi hermana mayor” helps new readers learning English and Spanish. (Image by Artepublico Books)

Bilingual picture books like “My Big Sister”/”Mi hermana mayor” offer a gentle introduction to a second langauge (English or Spanish), and can be a boon for older readers who need to brush up on their language skills.

Helpfully, these books tend to be written in the present tense (the easiest to understand for a beginning language learner), and printing both languages on the same page makes it easier to remember the changes from one language’s grammar to the other, e.g.:

Just about every page in the fantastically textured book “Under Ground” could be framed and hung as art — the alert robin peering from a tree branch, the forest of carrot tops traversed by a striped bug, the bunny snacking on green shoots, even the wasps in their subterranean nest.

Starting with what’s literally a bird’s eye view, the book digs down into the moist home of moles, ants, shrews and other ground-dwellers. Their dark world comes alive through Fleming’s luminous artwork, revealing a complex network of tunnels, dens and nests. Under the stolid surface, life teems, opening new vistas for a child’s imagination.

A “Creature identification” appendix offers notes on some of the underground inhabitants of this marvelous hidden world.

[/media-credit] In “Zayde Comes To Live,” a little girl finds learns how to help her aged grandfather as he struggles with his memory

The title “Zayde Comes to Live,” the name of Sheri Sinkin’s sensitive picture book about a grandfather in failing health, needs a qualifier. Yes, Zayde has come to live with Rachel’s family; he also has come to die in their arms.

“No one says this, but I know from what they do not say,” Rachel announces. Her grandfather, tethered to oxygen, watches Rachel and the rest of his limited world from a sleeper-chair. Rabbi Lev explains what will happen after Zayde’s last breath: “His energy will live on with your ancestors in the World To Come, what we call the Olam Ha-Ba.”

Luckily for Rachel, Zayde is gentle and mostly self-aware. His health fades like a rose dropping its pedals. (It would be a very different story if Zayde, like some grandfathers, no longer know who she was, or railed against his lot — realities for little girls whose grandfathers are treated less kindly by their dementia.)

What she learns from her Zayde is the importance of reeling in memories — the time he sewed his bridegroom son’s ripped trousers, the snow angel he made with his granddaughter — and making new memories together in the waning days of his life.

Like so many of us, Rocket the dog loves books — loves reading them, listening to books read aloud, even likes the way books smell. In Tad Hills’ “Rocket Writes a Story,” the dog collects words, too, and decides to combine his passions by writing a story.

Then he gets writer’s block: “He looked down at the blank page and the blank page looked up at him. But no story would come.” (So cruelly true!) His mentor, a yellow bird, suggests choosing a character, thinking about that character’s life, and answering the question, “Then what happened?” The answer: A tale that leaves Rocket and readers wagging their tails.